Bradford Park Avenue 0 Worcester City 1

WORCESTER City edged a typical end-of-season game at a sun-drenched Horsfall Stadium as the curtain came down on Avenue’s home campaign.

Bradford would have wanted to sign off in front of their own supporters on a winning note, and they certainly deserved something from the visit of the blue and whites.

The final ten minutes were played almost exclusively in and around City’s area but the equaliser proved elusive.

Avenue also began the game well, and the visitors had to keep breaking up play with niggling fouls in order to regroup, with Joe Colbeck featuring prominently for the hosts.

He elected to go for goal from a free-kick after Chris Howarth had been fouled but his effort came back off the face of the bar.

The moment that won the match came in the 27th minute, following a free-kick midway inside Avenue’s half.

The poor strike from Sean Geddes went into the wall and Anthony Charles’ shot from the rebound was well blocked but Jay Denny drilled the loose ball into John Danby’s net through a forest of legs.

Just before the half-hour, Bradford almost equalised with a free-kick of their own but Richard Marshall’s low, missile-like delivery flew just wide of Worcester keeper Jose Veiga’s right-hand post.

The visitors had two glorious opportunities to double their lead soon after the break but after that they sat back to protect their slender lead in the second half and ran the clock down at every given opportunity.

Geddes fired over after Danby had punched a 47th-minute free-kick clear, and the Bradford keeper made a great block to deny Daniel Nti.

Veiga thwarted Simon Ainge when his header from a corner was on target and made a superb reaction save to deny substitute Lamin Colley but he needed help on occasion, and centre back Anthony Charles was up to the task, putting his body on the line to make excellent blocks.

Deacey said: “We played well on a difficult pitch and I thought we deserved something out of the game. At least we’ll have decent pitches to play our last two games on because they’re both away.”